Phillip Smith, TPCP CRPC AIF

06/14/2026

Money is the root of all evil. That's what some people 'quote.'

Paul never said that.

1 Timothy 6:10 is often quoted wrong.

Paul said the LOVE OF money is the root of all kinds of evil. The words matter. That one word being included changes everything.

We all know what the love of money looks like in cartoon form: Scrooge McDuck diving headfirst into a vault of gold coins. It's absurd on purpose. The image is meant to make us laugh at the excess.

The real version isn't a swimming pool full of gold. It's a account that becomes the thing you trust most. It's an idolized number that, once reached, still doesn't feel like enough.

The love of money is a little like pride concelaed by the mask of financial discipline.

And this is where pride and the love of money get tangled.

Pride says, "My security is something I built."

The love of money says, "That security is something I will prioritize and measure."

Together, they make a convincing argument that you are the one holding the whole thing together.

I've sat across from people who saved well, planned carefully, and still arrived at retirement scared. The numbers were good, but somewhere along the way the money stopped being a tool and started being the point.

Paul was not warning us away from prosperity. He was warning us about what prosperity can do to the thing underneath it.

Jesus said it plainly - you can't serve two masters. You'll love one and resent the other.

Keep the main thing the main thing. is a God-given tool that we can use to achieve our . Nothing more or less.

06/12/2026

Ask most people what their biggest expenses will be in retirement and you'll hear mortgage, travel, spoiling the grandkids, perhaps long-term care (the closest to the truth).

The two that actually take the top of the list are and .

Some believe they're the hardest to predict and the easiest to underestimate. Planning helps.

Healthcare costs before Medicare can run into the thousands of dollars a month per person, and they don't stay flat. They tend to move in one direction. We've all witnessed it.

Taxes in retirement surprise people who spent their whole career in a predictable withholding system. We keep calling those pre-tax deductions 'tax savings.' That's a lie. Don't lie to yourself. You didn't save those taxes, you put them off until later.

Social Security gets taxed. PERS pensions get taxed. Traditional IRA distributions get taxed. Gains in your brokerage account (actual realized gain, dividends, and/or interest) get taxed. A good income year can trigger Medicare surcharges two years later.

None of this is necessarily a crisis. But, having a plan goes beyond a general budget estimate.

The retirees who handle these two big ticket items well didn't just save enough.
They thought carefully about what these two expenses would actually look like, and then built a strategy to prepare for them before actually wading through them.

We're all adults. And we know that eating our vegetables is part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. So, eat the proverbial vegetables and plan accordingly.

06/11/2026

Today is my birthday.

And since (if) you're reading this, it means I successfully scheduled this post in advance and am currently doing absolutely nothing work related.

No market updates or tax strategy or retirement income planning.

Just sunshine, sand, salt air, and (hopefully) something cold in my hand. My kids having fun and my wife just being her amazing self putting up with me.

Here's the one piece of financial wisdom I'll offer on my birthday:

Time is the one asset you cannot earn back, invest, or recover once it's spent.

There's no irony in someone like me (a retirement planning professional) projecting that from a beach chair (I'm assuming I'll have a beach chair as I write this from my couch :-) ). It's exactly the point.

Work hard, plan well, and actually live the life you built the plan for. But don't wait until retirement to begin enjoying life.

06/08/2026

Restructuring.
Reorganization.
Workforce reduction.

The language may change but the experience is about the same.

One day the job feels stable, and then the next, everything is uncertain. If was already on the horizon, that uncertainty can accelerate the timeline, potentially in ways you weren't ready for.

The people who navigate that moment best are the ones who know their numbers.

What does monthly spending actually look like?
How does income work if the paycheck stops sooner than planned?
Is healthcare covered or does that gap need a bridge?
How does an earlier-than-planned retirement affect Social Security timing?

Corporate change doesn't ask for permission. Having a plan means you don't have to scramble for answers while everything else is in sudden flux.

06/05/2026

I have two blueberry plants in my yard.

Okay, I have three, but that third one...eesh. Let's just call him Bruno and not talk about him.

So the TWO are different varieties. Same yard, right next to each other, but obviously fruiting on different timelines.

One is producing right now. Ripe, ready, worth picking today - delicious. The other is covered in green berries that won't be ready for a few more weeks.

If I picked everything from the first plant and ignored the second, I'd have a great week and then nothing. If I waited on both equally, I'd miss the window on the first one entirely.

The key, the place where to spend the attention, is knowing which one to harvest from and when.

income works the same way. (blueberry and retirement tie successfully achieved?)

Most people arrive at retirement with several different types of accounts. Pre-tax accounts like a 401(k) or Traditional IRA. Maybe (hopefully) Roth money in similar accounts. And then there's the the taxable brokerage accounts, too.

Each account has a different tax treatment, and a differing 'optimal moment' to tap. And even that optimal moment is different depending on the account owner's circumstance.

Drawing from the wrong one too early is like picking green blueberries. Drawing from the right one too late means missing the window.

I don't think diversification is just about having different investments, or accounts with different tax consequences. It's about understanding when each one is ready to be picked from, and having a plan for which one feeds you while the others keep growing.

Did I successfully land this analogy?

06/05/2026

The advent of summer has a way of slowing things down in the best possible way.

We get later sunsets, a different pace. We get the kind of days that remind you what you're actually working toward.

I think there's a version of retirement that looks a lot like this. Not every day as a vacation, but more control over how time gets spent. More day to spend, a greater ability to be present.

The people who enjoy most aren't always the ones who saved the most. I commonly see the happiest retirees being the ones who thought about what they actually wanted before they got there.

Summer is a good time to ponder it. Not just wonder, "Do I have enough?" but actually give thought to, "Enough for what, exactly?"

Your answer can shape everything else. And when you have a feel for "enough for what?" you can exercise greater control over the path to get there.

05/29/2026

The people who retire confidently aren't always the ones with the most money. They're the ones who did the work across all five areas of a solid retirement plan. This post breaks down exactly what that means.

If you're asking whether you can retire before 65 and make it last, here's how we answer that question across five areas: cash flow, taxes, risk, portfolio, and estate planning.

05/25/2026

Your will is not the last word.

Most people don't know that. Ignorance here is not benign.

There's an order to things in the financial world...a sort of hierarchy you did not create and cannot override with good intentions:

Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and bank accounts sit at the top of that hierarchy. They outrank your will. They outrank your attorney. They outrank whatever you told your spouse you wanted to happen.

The name on the form is the name that gets the money.
This is not a technicality. It is a law of the territory. And the territory does not care about your more recent intentions if the form does not reflect the change in your wishes.

I've seen it:
the ex-spouse who inherits
the deceased parent (and the deceased spouse with no contingency listed)
the sibling whose life looks nothing like it did fifteen years ago (or worse, looks exactly like it did when they were making all those questionable decisions 20 years ago)

Any of them could be first in line. It might not match what you want today, but if you never updated the form...

Maybe nobody told you the beneficiary form outranked the trust or will. Maybe you assumed the system (or someone specific) would honor what you meant rather than what you signed.

That assumption is an abdication of responsibility.

You built something, right? You worked for it. And you have an obligation - to yourself, to the people you love, to any semblance of the legacy you want to leave - to make sure it goes where you intend.

When did you last look at your beneficiary designations?

If the answer is "I'm not sure," that's not a small problem. That is the problem.

Order your house, my friends.

05/20/2026

Has anyone warned you about the first Monday after retirement? Let me be the first...

I hear it's amazing! The first few weeks feel like vacation: unhurried mornings, no alarm, no meetings; the freedom you spent decades working toward.

But those months become something like groundhog weeks. Something shifts, and you feel it...something missing.

The best organizations in the world don't just give people a paycheck. They give them a reason to be there, day in and day out: a sense of belonging. A feeling that what they do matters. Purpose.

When that's gone, even when you chose that special day when you were definitely going to be done, something has to replace it. Life without purpose feels, well, hollow.

Your retirement accounts can be an indicator of being financially prepared. The common retirement plans can help you be strategically prepared. But are you purposefully prepared.

Like, okay, you have the financial side covered, but what about the human side?

The calendar starts to feel different, open yes, but in a way that doesn't quite feel like freedom. The structure that organized your days, your identity, your sense of contribution - it's gone. And if you didn't think about how you were going to spend your time for the next couple of decades, nothing's there to replace it.

Who are you when the title, the schedule, the commitments, and the paycheck all disappear? What does a meaningful day consist of when there isn't work? What gets you out of bed when nothing requires you to?

These are the questions that determine whether retirement actually delivers what you spent decades building toward.

People don't stop needing purpose when they stop working. They just need a new source.

Knowing your why determines what you do when you arrive.

05/18/2026

The financial industry spent decades teaching you how to save.
Has anyone taught you how to stop?

The savings drumbeat is intentional, and it's great while you're working, but it has a design flaw.

Every account, every contribution, every statement you ever received was oriented around a single directive:

Accumulate
Build the pile
Feed the pig
Grow the balance
Hit the number

The entire architecture of modern retirement was constructed around many variations of one instruction: keep saving and don't touch it. So you do that (did that), for decades.

And then one day you retire and the new instruction is, "Now start taking money out."

It's a shock to the system - psychologically and financially.

Why people succeed (or feel successful) in the first half of their career and struggle in the second isn't an issue of competence. It's about preparation. The retirement system prepared you for accumulation. and then didn't offer to prepare you for what comes next.

What comes next is harder, in many ways.

Which account do you draw from first?
How do taxes work when the paycheck stops?
Are you paying more than you should in ?
How does Social Security interact with investment income and your Medicare costs?

Most people don't give these topics the time they deserve. Many will guess. They'll draw from whatever feels most accessible and hope.

The system failed to teach you decumulation. Not 'the system's' fault: it makes more money when your accounts are larger.

But, that does not mean you get to remain ignorant of it. You built something. Hopefully, you feel the obligation to steward it well.

Getting accumulation right matters. Getting retirement income right is what determines whether what you've saved will last.

Retirement may be where the most consequential decisions live. Are you prepared for it?